Live and taste the history of Spanish olive oil along the Camino

The Camino de Santiago doesn’t mean just walking, walking and walking. You will have the opportunity to live and taste the history of Spain not only meeting locals, but also enjoying the tasty Spanish tapas cooked with the most genuine Spanish ingredient: the olive oil. You will be able to taste the best plate of olives, a salad dressed with olive oil or any other dish cooked with real Spanish olive oil in every single village, town o city along the Camino.

The olive oil is not one more Spanish traditional product. Throughout history olive oil has become a top of the line product from Spain. Olive oil has been used for a whole range of purposes other than just as a food product. Remember that it has been used for medicinal purposes for centuries and it was also used in ancient times as a basic fuel for lighting (in oil lamps). Olive oil is also good for the skin and the hair as well as having a variety of other cosmetic. But actually the way you will enjoy the Spanish olive oil the most it is tasting the Spanish cuisine.

Spanish avant-garde cuisine has embraced extra virgin olive oil as a key ingredient in its gastronomic creations. The research by Ferran Adria, Martin Berasategui, Paco Roncero and Dani Garcia, among others, has resulted in the discovery of new culinary uses for this ingredient.

Apart from the culinary uses of olive oil, we would like to point out that the olive oil comes from one of the most symbolic and oldest trees in the world. Let’s to review the origins of the olive oil and its links to the religions.

The Roman presence (approximately 218 BC until the early 5th century AD) saw the first large-scale production of olive oil on the Iberian Peninsula. The cultivation of olive trees spread throughout the Betica region (in central and southern Spain) where there are thought to have been 62,000 acres of olive groves.

There are symbols and applications relating to olive oil in the Jewish religion and the Islamic and Christian cultures, where it is considered to have purifying or ritual properties.

Would you like to learn more about the history of olive oil in Spain? Click here